Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz

Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz (29 September 1904-16 February 1973) was the German naval attache to Denmark during World War II. Despite being a member of the Nazi Party, he assisted in the Rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943.

Biography
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was born in Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, German Empire on 29 September 1904 to an old patrician family. He worked in the international coffee trade, and he traded with the Scandinavian countries during the 1930s. Duckwitz joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and worked for the Hamburg America Line shipping company before becoming Nazi Germany's maritime attache to Denmark in 1939. During World War II, he worked with the Swedish government to evacuate Danish Jews, culminating in the 1943 Rescue of the Danish Jews, which saved 99% of Denmark's Jews from deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He later claimed that he had helped the Jews because he felt that the people of Denmark had warmly welcomed him into their country, with some of those Danes being Jews. After the war, he remained in the foreign service of West Germany, retiring in 1970. He died in 1973 at the age of 69.